Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Hot End Fail

I’ve had a bit of a break from my RepRap project recently, mainly caused by my disappointment when my first hot end lasted all of about 1 hour continuous printing before failing. It looks like the force of the filament being pushed down into the barrel was sufficient to cause the threads to slip on the PTFE interface. Probably partly due to heat making the PTFE more compliant. It does look like some plastic has made its way into the thread, but I’m not definite that it’s not just remnants of the PTFE tape. I’ve ordered the new design hot end components so looking forward to assembling that.

Meanwhile I’ve made a couple of adjustments. I’ve moved the USB connection from the top board to the lower board next to the power connection, I’ve added a switch (salvaged from a broken kettle) to the 12V power, and also added an LED strip to the underside of the upper board which nicely lights up the build area. Although I am now starting to think that it would be better to have all the electronics encased in a project box and have the rest of the machine stand alone.

I’ve also been working on a side project; using my android phone as a remote control for my Samsung TV using an Arduino connected via Bluetooth. It worked a lot easier than I thought and showed me how simple (and cheap) it could be to add wireless capability to any Arduino project. Documentation is a little sparse at the moment but hoping to add more soon, but if you’re interested the info can be found here: